


to the better days

by paracyane



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 20 Things, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:27:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9413969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paracyane/pseuds/paracyane
Summary: Twenty things Iwaizumi will remember about volleyball.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ideallyqualia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ideallyqualia/gifts).



1\. Iwaizumi wasn’t much of a believer in anything, but he remembered this: even when the team changed, he could read it all in their faces. The regret and excitement, the heartbreak and the determination. There were guys here who never saw the view from the top, never made it to their prefectural finals, never even made the regulars. So there was a lot that surprised him, but what he remembered was mostly all the things Iwaizumi couldn’t understand but thought he did; all the things Iwaizumi understood best by not understanding at all. 

But he was also a fighter, and a persistent one at that. Despite everything, he thought a team was something he could stay loyal to, something worth his unending effort. 

 

2\. His university didn’t have strict hours regarding equipment and facility usage, as long as everyone was out by midnight. Most days, Iwaizumi was the last one out of the building, but one day he hits his forehead by running into something weirdly solid, surprisingly human. 

 

3\. It’d been upwards of three years, but of course the way Kageyama looked like a deer in headlights was the same. 

Iwaizumi already had experience with the kind of kouhai Kageyama tended to be, but nothing could have prepared him for the pressure and expectation that Kageyama exuded when he was the one tossing the ball. Maybe if Iwaizumi didn’t have years of watching out for Oikawa weighing on him, he wouldn’t have had the strength to jump nearly high enough. 

But he did, and he too hated to lose: something that in the midst of everything that they could both understand. 

 

4\. Kageyama didn’t like to go see matches by himself. “Because it looks like I’m talking to myself when I make comments,” he said, but Iwaizumi agreed to accompany him without asking any questions. 

After a moment of hesitation, he added, “And I know you’ve been following the league this season.” 

Iwaizumi was surprised, but he laughed anyway, and thought that it was nothing short of a miracle, that he could connect to someone as withdrawn as Kageyama over something that felt as easy and natural as their favorite sport.

 

5\. When Iwaizumi counted, Kageyama carried with him three changes of clothes specifically for practice. In high school, Iwaizumi had carried more, but that had only been because Oikawa had a habit of forgetting his own and stealing (“Borrowing! I’m just borrowing them, Iwa-chan!”) Iwaizumi’s. 

 

6\. It’d been his mistake to think that these bastards were on his side, Iwaizumi thought every year when he was being held down and kicking while cake was smeared on his face. This time around, Kageyama was standing in the back, not participating, which Iwaizumi appreciated until he started taking pictures. 

(In Iwaizumi’s third year, his captain would tell him that the captain of the team two years ago had gotten an ‘anonymous’ tip from a member of Iwaizumi’s high school club that it was tradition to _cake Iwa-chan on his birthday_.)

 

7\. A phone conversation that took place an unspecified amount of time later:

“Are you _serious_ , Trashkawa?!” 

“But Iwa-chan, wasn’t the cake really good? Did Tobio lick some off you like the time we dared Kunimi-chan—”

 

8\. Iwaizumi kept in contact with his high school teammates not by his own choice, but because Hanamaki liked to sleep on his couch every time he visited; Iwaizumi and his roommate were clean and, in Hanamaki’s own words, “Oikawa’s apartment is like a war zone. Every time I've slept on his couch I've woken up to him stepping on my ass.” 

 

9\. They played pickup matches every once in awhile when they could get enough people, and more than once, Oikawa and Kageyama unceremoniously pummeled Iwaizumi and Hanamaki. 

(“This isn’t fair,” Hanamaki complained.

“It’s not fair for me and Iwa-chan or Makki to play together,” Oikawa explained cheerfully. “And Tobio tosses to Iwa-chan now.” 

Hanamaki proposed, “How about we serve the ball at Oikawa’s head?” 

“I’ve been _trying_ ,” Iwaizumi replied, affronted.) 

 

10\. The forefront reason Iwaizumi kept track of Kageyama was because they were teammates. Apart from that… Iwaizumi wasn’t about to admit to things just yet, but he didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was laughing at the way Kageyama and Oikawa argued: over who got to serve first (“Tobio-chan should go first because it’ll lower the other team’s guard.”), who got to serve second (“But then Tobio-chan should serve second because a strong start is very important!”), who got to serve at all (“I’m going home,” Kageyama announced, and ducked when Oikawa threw the ball at him).

 

11\. In no way was Kageyama easily approachable. Despite everything, that much hadn’t changed. He was still the eager twelve year old as much as he was the scowling fifteen year old, the crying eighteen year old after his first loss on an international stage. But he also slept naked and with his mouth wide open, sang in the gym showers when he thought no one was around (“What is that _noise_ ,” Hanamaki yelled when Iwaizumi was trying to show him where he could put his bag), and accidentally set aluminum foil on fire by microwaving it. 

So he wasn’t perfect, but Iwaizumi had never thought that for a second.

 

12\. The swear jar had been enforced in Iwaizumi’s second year, except the team collectively agreed that in addition to swearing, a payment of 10 yen was necessary whenever someone lost their temper, yelled, stormed out of the gym, or all of the aforementioned. 

In eight months, Kageyama had only contributed 20 yen to the pile of coins. 

“Looks like joining the national team got him to mature a bit,” Iwaizumi said to his captain, right as Kageyama smacked one of his fellow first years with a mop. 

(So he hadn’t finished growing up, either.) 

 

13\. Negotiations with Kageyama usually went smoothly. Kageyama didn’t talk back unless he felt it was important, and Iwaizumi could usually see right through him. 

The perk of dealing with geniuses, Iwaizumi told Hanamaki (and anyone else who would listen, really), was that they were usually hopeless at everything else. 

 

14\. They only clashed when they needed to — steady, reliable Iwaizumi pulling the team forward; reckless, impassive Kageyama letting everyone decide their limits for their own. 

 

15\. What would be the point if Iwaizumi didn’t put his all into whatever he was doing? It wouldn’t be funny if he backed out now. It wouldn’t be fair, either, if he said that there was nothing Kageyama taught him in all the years they’ve known each other. 

And Kageyama asked the volleyball questions: was the toss high enough? Would Iwaizumi-san like it higher? Should they go over the timing of their quick again or did Iwaizumi-san feel confident? 

But did he? Feel confident? 

 

16\. Iwaizumi wondered if it was too late to start asking himself how long he’d been waiting. Or to ask Kageyama, what took him so long? 

 

17\. “Iwaizumi-san,” Kageyama said, and he said it in so many different ways: on the court before the match point, at the end of the day before Iwaizumi finished drinking all his water, with a look that was and wasn’t all at once. 

 

18\. When Iwaizumi turned to look at him, he was holding a towel to his forehead, his gaze piercing and punctuated by the sweat trickling down his throat. There was a volleyball tucked in the crook of his free arm, scuff marks visible in plain sight.

 

19\. Kageyama was the type to start crying after everyone else had stopped. He was also the type to cry harder the closer Iwaizumi held him. 

 

20\. A freeze frame of a team in victory was more or less the same as a team in defeat. Either way, Iwaizumi didn’t feel the need to add to the conversation so long as he kept his gaze fixed skyward, so bright and blinding it was hard not to blink.


End file.
